Southern Conference invites 3 schools to join its ranks

By Halifax Media Group

Published: Thursday, May 30, 2013 at 07:40 PM.

“We don’t have that cloud hanging over our head now,” Iamarino said, referring to the departure rumors that have persisted during the last calendar year. “There’s a lot of opportunity for us. These schools are clear that they want to be together. They want to be in the Southern Conference.”

This ends what was a deliberate expansion process.

Iamarino and the representatives of the Southern Conference’s site committee took campus visits during the past month, touring East Tennessee State, Mercer and VMI and meeting with leaders on those institutions — while Davidson and Elon became the latest to negotiate with other leagues and leave.

EastTennessee Statewas in the Southern Conference from 1978-2005, before jumping to the Atlantic Sun. The Buccaneers, who discontinued their football program at the end of the 2003 season, citing financial burdens, are scheduled to restart football in 2015. Iamarino said East Tennessee State is projected to participate in a full Southern Conference football schedule in 2016.

Mercer has been in the Atlantic Sun since 1978, when it joined as a charter member of the league. The Bears are adding women’s track and field and resurrecting their football program, which last played a game in 1941. Mercer will play football in the non-scholarship Pioneer League this fall before tackling a full Southern Conference schedule in 2014.

VMI was a Southern Conference member for nearly 80 years, from 1924-2003, until leaving for the Big South — a move down that allowed Elon to climb into the Southern Conference. Iamarino spoke Thursday about the valued tradition and history that VMI brings back to the Southern Conference.

The league should benefit, the commissioner said, from maintaining a presence in Georgia — Mercer is located in Macon, Ga. — and reopening a foothold in Virginia.

Depleted by a stream of realignment departures, the Southern Conference took steps toward more stability Thursday by adding East Tennessee State and Mercer as future members.

Virginia Military Institute also was extended an invitation to join the league and is expected to accept today, pending ratification from its board of visitors.

The trio of schools will come onboard the Southern Conference in July 2014. East Tennessee State and VMI, both former longtime members of the league, are making return moves.

“We’re very happy,” conference commissioner John Iamarino said Thursday from the league’s spring meetings in Hilton Head, S.C. “The addition of these three schools, I think, solidifies our membership.”

The Southern Conference has been impacted by a cycle of change during the last six months, with College of Charleston (leaving for the Colonial Athletic Association in 2013), Appalachian State (leaving for the Sun Belt in 2014), Georgia Southern (leaving for the Sun Belt in 2014), Davidson (leaving for the Atlantic 10 in 2014) and Elon University (leaving for the CAA in 2014) announcing plans to exit the league.

Bringing in East Tennessee State, Mercer, and VMI will put the Southern Conference at 10 members. Last week, when Elon revealed its intention to depart, the Southern Conference had been reduced to seven schools for the 2014-15 academic year.

Iamarino said combining the three additions with the league’s remaining members — Chattanooga, Furman, Samford, The Citadel, UNC Greensboro, Western Carolina and Wofford — provides the conference with a committed group for the future and an opportunity to “rebrand” itself.

“We don’t have that cloud hanging over our head now,” Iamarino said, referring to the departure rumors that have persisted during the last calendar year. “There’s a lot of opportunity for us. These schools are clear that they want to be together. They want to be in the Southern Conference.”

This ends what was a deliberate expansion process.

Iamarino and the representatives of the Southern Conference’s site committee took campus visits during the past month, touring East Tennessee State, Mercer and VMI and meeting with leaders on those institutions — while Davidson and Elon became the latest to negotiate with other leagues and leave.

EastTennessee Statewas in the Southern Conference from 1978-2005, before jumping to the Atlantic Sun. The Buccaneers, who discontinued their football program at the end of the 2003 season, citing financial burdens, are scheduled to restart football in 2015. Iamarino said East Tennessee State is projected to participate in a full Southern Conference football schedule in 2016.

Mercer has been in the Atlantic Sun since 1978, when it joined as a charter member of the league. The Bears are adding women’s track and field and resurrecting their football program, which last played a game in 1941. Mercer will play football in the non-scholarship Pioneer League this fall before tackling a full Southern Conference schedule in 2014.

VMI was a Southern Conference member for nearly 80 years, from 1924-2003, until leaving for the Big South — a move down that allowed Elon to climb into the Southern Conference. Iamarino spoke Thursday about the valued tradition and history that VMI brings back to the Southern Conference.

The league should benefit, the commissioner said, from maintaining a presence in Georgia — Mercer is located in Macon, Ga. — and reopening a foothold in Virginia.

EastTennessee State’s return figures to reinvigorate an in-state rivalry with league member Chattanooga. The Southern Conference arrivals of East Tennessee State and Mercer also should be of geographic help to league member Samford, which is in Birmingham, Ala.

“Our membership is excited about rekindling old rivalries and re-establishing new ones,” Iamarino said. “Most importantly, we’ve been able to grow while not extending our geographic footprint to an extreme extent.”